I received an email a few weeks ago to sign up for a new research program in San Diego called Eye Tracking. I signed up, but haven’t been contacted yet to do a study so I can’t 100% vouch for this yet, but I thought I would share the info with anyone interested.
From the website’s FAQ:
What is EyeTracking User Research?
EyeTracking, Inc. conducts user research studies to gather feedback about various websites, software, advertising and packaging products. To ensure that the feedback we gather is indicative of what most people experience, participants in the study must fit within the broad range of our target users.
What is the EyeTracking, Inc. User Research Participant Database?
The Participant Database contains names and contact information of potential participants for user research studies at EyeTracking, Inc. All information is kept confidential and is not used for marketing purposes; it is used only to screen potential participants for studies.
How does EyeTracking, Inc. use the Participant Database?
In preparation for each research study, a profile of users is determined based on the target users for the product. We search the Participant Database for users who match our target user profile and screen them for eligibility. Entry into the Participant Database does not guarantee participation in our studies. We then contact prospective participants who match our needs and schedule a time for them to participate in the study.
Do participants get paid?
Participants are compensated for their time. Factors, such as the length of the study, and type of study determine the compensation offered.
What’s the time commitment?
The time varies for each study, depending on the type of research study. This time can be anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours.
What do participants do in these studies?
For usability studies, participants are asked to come to EyeTracking, Inc and participate in a usability session, which can last anywhere between 45 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the study. The location of the study is usually at the main EyeTracking, Inc. headquarters in San Diego, but may also be conducted at other cities throughout the world. Each participant meets one-on-one with a Researcher at EyeTracking, Inc. and is asked to complete various tasks on a website. Compensation is offered (up to $75 /hour). All information gathered during the session, including participant’s identity, is kept confidential.
Who accesses the information I provide and is it kept private?
The information you provide to us for the User Research Participant Database is used by EyeTracking, Inc., to contact you for research opportunities. We do not make this information public or sell this information to others.
If you are interested in signing up click here for the sign up page. If anyone has any experience with this company let me know in the comments.
This may seem like a no-brainer, but I know that some people don’t do it.
You know how when you buy something online, when you get to checkout there is usually a field that says “apply coupon code”?
Most people would probably just skip over this section if they didn’t have a coupon, but why not do a quick search for one?
Last week when I went to pay for my new webhost, I noticed the coupon code box, did a quick Google search and found a code for $25 dollars off! Then last night I went to order a pizza from Papa Johns, noticed the coupon code box, searched and found a coupon that saved me $10!
It’s really easy to do and can save you some good money. Just go to Google and search for the website you are buying from followed by “coupon code” or “promo code”. Alternatively you can check out RetailMeNot. This is a site that compiles coupon codes for thousands of sites and allows you to report whether or not it actually worked for you.
Has anyone had any luck searching for coupon codes lately? Let us know!
edit:
Turnip from Turnip of Power has pointed out that some of these coupon sites can be pretty shady and can actually add a cookie to your browser will give them a commission if you visit their site before buying a product. Now I normally wouldn’t have a problem with this if the codes actually work, but some of these sites post phoney codes just to get unearned commissions.
My advice: If you click through an affiliate link from a fellow blogger, don’t go to the coupon site and let them take the affiliate commission away from the blogger who rightfully earned it. If you are visiting the site directly, just be careful about what coupon sites you visit. I’ve had great luck with RetailMeNot and would definitely recommend it.
I know I have probably talked about paid search programs a little too much recently, but I thought I would do one more post about them before I leave the subject alone for a while.
I’ve been seeing a lot of advertisements and posts about Scour.com recently. For those of you that don’t know, Scour.com is a new player in the paid search that offers to reward you for not only searching but also voting and reviewing results.
Lets take a look at how Scour stacks up against my two favorite paid search engines, Swagbucks and Homepages friends.
Scour
- Search Engine Used – Google, Yahoo and MSN aggregated. Search results are actually pretty good for an aggregate engine.
- Payment Per Search – Users receive one point for a search, two points for a vote and three for a comment with a maximum of four points per search. 6,500 points earns you a $25 Visa gift card. A little math and we learn that each point is worth a little less than .4 cents. A search earning the maximum of four points is worth approximately 1.5 cents. That means in order to earn $25 by yourself you would need to make over 1,600 searches.
- Affiliate program – If you invite friends to join Scour you receive 25% of what they earn. This can definitely increase the speed at which you earn, but you would still only receive one point on each four point search a friend makes. You could definitely make some decent money if you have enough friends sign up, but it would probably take several dozen actively searching referrals before you would start seeing any real money.
Swagbucks
- Search Engine Used – Google and Ask.com. Search results are actually probably the worst of the three, but as long as you aren’t searching for something incredibly specific it usually finds the correct results.
- Payment Per Search – SwagBucks is definitely the odd one in terms of payment. It is actually my favorite site since I believe it offers the best payout and referral program if you use it correctly. You are not paid per search with Swagbucks, instead you are randomly awarded between 1-5 Swagbucks during your searching. Since Swagbucks are redeemed for prizes not cash there is no firm number for how much a Swagbuck is worth. However, 45 Swagbucks will get you a $5 Amazon Gift Card so I generally think of each Swagbuck as being worth a little more than 10 cents. You can usually win your first Swagbuck within your first few searches each day, but you will rarely win more than once within a few hours. Because of this, it does not pay to keep searching with Swagbucks after you win, instead you should use another search engine for at least a few hours before trying to win on Swagbucks again. For more Swagbucks tips, click here.
- Affiliate program – I think Swagbucks has the best affiliate program because you actually win exactly what your referrals win. So if you have just 10 referrals earning 1 Swagbuck per day, you would be winning 10 Swagbucks per day. You can easily see how Swagbucks can start adding up, in fact in the last month I’ve made over 1,000 Swagbucks!
I hope this helps clear up some of the differences between the three programs. I know there are more out there, but these three seem to be the most popular and the best paying. Again, I tend to like Swagbucks because they have the best referral program and because its really exciting when you get the little notification saying “You’ve Won a Swagbuck!”.
